March 22nd, 2015

In the next segment of The Tipping Point, Gladwell talks about the factor of environmental context on trends. Gladwell claims that in order for a trend to reach its "tipping point", the environment and context for it have to be right. In this chapter, Gladwell talks about how the crime rate in New York City during the 1990s declined rapidly. He says that although there were many other factors that ended up bringing the crime rate down, an important one was the fact that when the police and other departments noticed even slight evidence of deterioration in a neighborhood, they would immediately change that small deterioration and that would cause a reversal in the trend of increasing crime. For example, if there was new graffiti on places, it would be painted over. This would change the environment to a point where the new clean walls/buildings would help create a trend of a falling crime rate. I think this example of the environment impacting a trend really shows how trends can be fostered/accelerated when their environments are optimal. Another trend that I think follows this pattern is the increase in healthy food and specialty food shops. In our environment, people were becoming more aware of their health, and began seeking ways to improve it. That fostered the need for rapidly growing chains that sell salads, instead of burgers. I feel like this aspect of trends reaching their tipping point is more intuitive than some of the other aspects. I can really see the importance of any given environment being ready to foster any trend, in order for that trend to succeed. If the environment projects a different message from what a trend is trying so send, that trend will not succeed. That is why it is very important for people who try to make trends accelerate to pay attention to what's going on around them.